CAREERENGINE, INC. CREATES CAREER SEARCH SECTION ON 'THE BLACK WORLD TODAY' WEBSITE

Leading E-Recruiting Network Offers Variety of Career Services on Premier African American Internet Site

NEW YORK, October 10, 1999 -- CareerEngine, Inc. (a subsidiary of Helmstar Group, Inc., AMEX: HLM) today announced that it has created a career search section for The Black World Today (www.tbwt.com), a premier destination site for African-Americans worldwide.

In addition to making online job listings available to customers of The Black World Today, users will have direct access to CareerEngine's leading network of 20 category specific career sites, featuring confidential resume hosting, public job posting, career counseling and professional development services.

Partnering with The Black World Today enables CareerEngine to broaden its e-recruiting services and provide tailored job searches for a large and influential population segment. In addition, The Black World Today site will now serve as an additional job posting venue for CareerEngine's recruitment distribution partners.

"Our partnership with The Black World Today reflects CareerEngine's ongoing efforts to provide online career advancement opportunities to a broad array of Internet users," said Tom Ferrara, President and CEO of CareerEngine. "We are excited having the opportunity to link up with The Black World Today, which has such an impressive audience base as one of the largest diversity group websites."

The new agreement is the latest co-branding initiative for the CareerEngine network, which recently built career search sections for Jewish Community Online, one of the most established and comprehensive Jewish Internet sites, and 1 Nation Online, a multi-lingual website providing services in Chinese, Spanish and English.

"Our alliance with CareerEngine allows us to bring a wide range of career opportunities to the African-American online community," said Don Rojas, founder and CEO of The Black World Today. "CareerEngine's targeted network of category specific sites and virtual career communities will offer our users unparalleled access to various job markets into the 21st century."

About CareerEngine, Inc. CareerEngine (http://www.careerengine.com) is the leading network of category specific career destination sites, including its flagship sites: ITClassifieds.com, SalesClassifieds.com and AccountingClassifieds.com. CareerEngine job counselors and recruiters help prospective candidates define, locate and secure career opportunities and/or consulting assignments. The network's 20 individual sites are interactive "virtual communities" that offer a personal approach to online career search. Headquartered in New York City, CareerEngine offers e-recruiting services to Fortune 1000 companies. The company has distribution partnerships with leading recruiting firms, which sell the services of CareerEngine's sites. The company is a subsidiary of Helmstar Group, Inc., a publicly traded merchant bank with a 25-year history.

About The Black World Today The Black World Today (http://www.tbwt.com) is the premier destination site for African-Americans worldwide. The site offers informational and entertainment services including news, sports, commentaries, audio content, job listings, music, weather and shopping. The Black World Today fosters interactivity and community involvement among its users through text and audio chat, bulletin boards, letters to the editors and public opinion polls. The site is read and listened to in over 70 countries and receives approximately 250,000 unique visits each month.

Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and information available to management at this time. They may involve known risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.